


Let's Make a Deal

by OnstageSport



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, the rating is because there is one (1) swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 11:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11312220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnstageSport/pseuds/OnstageSport
Summary: Jack has an illegal cat in his apartment and David has found him out.





	Let's Make a Deal

**Author's Note:**

> @actingitup and I have been doing writing prompt challenges this whole month and he'll post his response as soon as he can

Jack was in the middle of painting when he heard a knock on his door. He rinsed off his hands and grabbed his wallet as he jogged over to answer it.

Digging in his wallet, he asked, “So, how much do I owe-” he glanced up at his empty-handed visitor and observed that “you are not pizza.”

The guest shrugged apologetically.

“No, I’m not,” he agreed with a nod. Jack stared at him for a second, waiting for him to further explain his reason for knocking. “I’m your neighbor.”

“Shit, I didn’t mean to…” He couldn’t think of anything he had actually done that would cause his neighbor to complain but why else would he be here?

“It’s nothing like that!” the neighbor assured all too quickly. He glanced furtively down the hall and urgently asked if he could come in.

Although he was suspicious, Jack allowed him in, apologizing for the mess, and closed the door behind him. The neighbor looked too kind and nervous to be a murderer— _That’s how they get you, Jacky_ a voice in his head that sounded infuriatingly like his friend Racetrack (and if that’s who his conscience was, he had bigger problems) chided.

“Look, I don’t think you got the right neighbor,” Jack laughed. He doubted that this kid was looking to buy any kind of drug but what else could he be so secretive about?

“The one with the cat?”

Jack straightened up at the accusation before brushing it aside with a “Pfft, no pets allowed here.”

“I know,” the boy said seriously. “Which is why you could get in real trouble if anybody found out about it.”

Jack squinted at him, not quite sure what was going on here but certain that he didn’t like it.

“You got a name, kid?” he asked.

“David,” the neighbor introduced, holding his hand out. “And I’m not a kid. I’m twenty-three.”

“Jack. Twenty-two, I like long walks on the beach and-”

David did not seem to find that as amusing as Jack anticipated though he could have sworn he saw him crack a smile.

“Where’s the cat, Jack?” David then asked him stoically.

“Look, Davey, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jack insisted, shaking his head. He stared at David with such an earnest look that he could see David’s resolve begin to falter. Maybe he had gotten the wrong neighbor after all. Maybe he had hallucinated the cat he'd seen in the window.

And it would have worked had the fluff ball not decided to make herself visible at that precise moment. Jack swore under his breath. When David saw her come padding around the corner, he practically shrieked that he “knew it!”

“Hey, hey, keep it down!” Jack shushed, staring at the boy with wide eyes. He was at the disadvantage here and he knew it. David could get him in so much trouble now that he knew that he did, in fact, have a cat.

But Davey didn’t seem to have any malicious intentions, judging by the starry-eyed way he stared at the cream-colored cat, a smile spreading across his face.

“You ever have one?” Jack wagered, watching as David knelt and held out a hand for the cat to sniff.

“Yeah,” Davey sighed happily when she gently butted her head against his fingers. “Yeah, when I was a kid. Henry.”

“Henry?” Jack repeated with a snort. Who named a cat _Henry_?

“My brother named it,” David explained as he started to card his fingers through the soft fur. He looked up at Jack as his cat started to weave her way around David’s legs. “What’s her name?

“Kahlo,” Jack nodded as he watched his neighbor interact with his illegal cat.

Davey raised his eyebrows at Jack and repeated the name. Whether he was trying to imitate Jack or was genuinely curious, Jack couldn’t tell.

“Yeah. Like Frida,” Jack explained. As he knelt down to the floor to be on his cat’s level, he could have sworn he heard Davey mutter that he ‘knew who Frida Kahlo was.’

Jack blew some kisses to get Kahlo’s attention. “Kahlo. Kahlo, come here.” She seemed far more interested in the stranger. Jack tried for a few more seconds with no better luck before giving up with a sigh.

“You ain’t gonna tell on me, right?” he asked, rising to his feet. He was fairly sure that David had made too much of a connection with Kahlo to turn them in, but he had to be sure.

Davey looked between the cat who was rubbing her head affectionately against his knee and her owner, grinning.

“Tell you what, Jack; I’ll make you a deal,” he negotiated, stroking along the length of Kahlo’s spine.

“I’m listening,” Jack said, folding his arms and raising his eyebrows. _And here’s where he does something murdery,_ Race’s voice sang in his head. _Or perverted,_ it added as an afterthought.

David took his time standing up, reluctant to stop playing with the cat. Kahlo also seemed disappointed because she meowed insistently at him to return.

“I won’t turn you in,” David promised, bending over again to pet her.

“I can sense there’s a ‘but’ coming,” Jack predicted suspiciously.

“Not a ‘but,’” David assured, looking up at Jack and straining his neck to do so. He knelt down again so he could more easily look at Jack while stroking Kahlo. “An ‘if.’”

Jack quirked a brow at Davey. Kneeling on his floor did not seem like the proper position to be giving conditions.

“I won’t turn you in,” Davey repeated very seriously, looking into Jack’s eyes. “If you let me come play with your cat.”

Jack almost burst out laughing. He didn’t know what he had been expecting but it wasn’t that. That had almost been a given in this circumstance.

“Of course! Weekly, daily, what?”

Davey leaned back in surprise at the offer of coming over to Jack’s apartment every day to pet his cat.

“Oh. Um. We’ll work something out?” was the best he could come up with on the spot.

Jack nodded happily. They could hardly be expected to work out all of the details within two seconds of his agreeing to David’s condition.

There was a sudden knock on the door that interrupted anything else either of them were about to say.

“You wanna stay for some pizza?” he offered with a smile, walking around the man and the cat to pick up his since-discarded wallet. “Then we can figure out when you’re coming over next.”

David twisted around, craning his neck to continue to address Jack from his position on the floor.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” David smiled back at him. He turned back to Kahlo and asked if she would like that as well. She purred in affirmation.

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of want to add more to this so maybe I will. Maybe I won't, though. Who knows? Certainly not me.
> 
> Also, in case anyone is interested, Kahlo's a Ragamuffin


End file.
